Is Miku Hatsune A More Authentic Pop Star Than Lana Del Rey?
>> MIKE: Here’s an idea: Miku Hatsune, a computer generated vocalist, is a more a more authentic pop star than Lana Del Rey. music If you’ve missed it recently, Lana Del Rey is a human pop star with fingers, blood, a mom, the whole nine yards. But Lana has caught a lot of flack for being inauthentic. She sells the indie rock image but in reality she’s got a super rich dad, a pop record she paid to have removed from shelves a couple years back, and is at the center of this huge marketing machine that has basically constructed her. To a lot of people, this makes Lana Del Rey a big, fat liar. Miku on the other hand is a Japanese pop star but she’s not a person, she’s a computer program. She had her humble beginnings as a piece of speech synthesis software and after years of development she was released as, and I quote, an android dive from the near future where all songs are lost. That is awesome. So clearly both of these ladies are manufactured products. One of them a little bit more literally than the other, but what’s the big deal? Why do people hate Lana and love Miku? Sure, there is a long history of manufactured pop stars, but Lana was manufactured to appear unmanufactured. And when people figured this out... Eugh... In a weird way, Miku is more authentic. Even though she’s not a human, her fans feel like they can connect with her. And sure, she was specifically made to appear that way, but so was Lana. At the heart of this argument aren’t we talking about music? Shouldn’t the music speak for itself? Yeah, it should, but we want to consume the fashion, the ideas, personalities, and the stories related to those personalities. It’s gotten to the point now where our ability to relate or empathize with something is actually more important than that thing’s real, physical existence. We’ve already gone from pets to pop stars, so what’s next? Computerized politicians? What about you? Do you guys think Miku Hatsune is more real than Lana Del Rey? Let us know in the comments, and then click all the other buttons that are down there... I hear that’s good for business. Wwwwwwhat- You guys had a lot to say about the Mario video. Let’s talk about your comments. “You can’t play a Dali painting... Yet...” I like your enthusiasm, chaddarooch, stay hopeful. “COMIC SANS!!! I know that they’re tubas but it’s just so much fun to say sousaphone. Thank you unstablejello, I made it myself. Breaking news: Apparently Wario has a new secret identity... whispers It’s RoboCane Commenter unchengful was inspired by Mario to creat 8-bit versions of Sesame Street characters because awesome. Mario inspired me to... waste most of sixth grade. And if you really wanna have a serious conversation about this topic, the comment thread on Kotaku is awesome. Go check it out. And to Jonathan Holmes from Distructoid, our next episode actually is about Pac-Man as a metaphor for man’s continual consumption of the worlds around him in a vain attempt to fend off his inevitable death. We hope you’ll tune in. Category:English Category:Complete